


Gotta Kick at the Darkness Till It Bleeds Daylight

by Thats_Amore



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - Human, Coming Out, Disabled Character, Discrimination, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Forbidden Love, Hopeful Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Sexism, Internalized Homophobia, Lavender Scare, M/M, Outing, POV America (Hetalia), Period-Typical Homophobia, Permanent Injury, Secret Relationship, Slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-19 07:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29746881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thats_Amore/pseuds/Thats_Amore
Summary: Alfred wants to serve his country, and he decides to become a foreign service officer after a war injury ends his military career prematurely. But in the 1950s, Communists aren't the only ones being targeted for removal from government employment, and Alfred's relationship with a tailor he met shortly after he arrived in Rome makes him more vulnerable than he'd ever been in any combat zone.
Relationships: America/South Italy (Hetalia)
Kudos: 19
Collections: Historical Hetalia Week (February 2021)





	Gotta Kick at the Darkness Till It Bleeds Daylight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 6 of Historical Hetalia Week. I listed the sources for this fic [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/17wmGIFwsOuqS44uiucqPwMcqb4efzoCB-y8k7C1cJmA/). Title taken from the song "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" by Bruce Cockburn. For this story, I used the name Augusto for Ancient Rome.

Alfred F. Jones’s life came crashing down on him on a beautiful September day in 1953. Up until that point, he’d been the pride of both his nation and his parents, the son who had begun a career as a foreign service officer after a brief but honorable stint in the U.S. Army during World War II. Alfred had been injured in the first battle he’d ever engaged in, and his left arm had been amputated below the elbow. But Alfred still felt an urge to serve his country, even if the military was no longer an option for him. With the assistance of the GI bill, he was able to afford a university education, and to fulfill his aspirations, he majored in political science with a minor in world history. Alfred passed the rigorous battery of tests and screenings, and his first assignment was to provide consular services in the embassy at Rome.

Alfred loved his job assisting American citizens and helping adjudicate visa applications to the United States. He was nowhere near the top of the food chain, but he felt that he was making a meaningful and positive difference. Alfred loved both the embassy and the city he worked in, and he had grown to strongly love one person from Rome in particular. It was his affection for Savino, an affection that Alfred had carefully concealed for fear of how it would affect every other area of his life, which proved to be his ultimate undoing.

* * *

Alfred had met Savino shortly after he arrived in Rome, when he’d gone to his family’s tailoring shop with the purpose of expanding the wardrobe of suits he needed for his job. Savi had been the one to take Alfred’s measurements that day, and Alfred had felt oddly shy when Savino stepped in close to measure him, even if Vinny did his job in a completely professional, clinical manner that could not possibly be construed as intimate. Alfred had felt drawn to Savino and his hazel eyes, which for some reason he found himself daydreaming about in the rare lulls that accompanied his busy schedule. He kept coming back to the tailoring shop, even after his suits had been made and he had no further need of the Vargas family’s services. Eventually, Alfred asked Savino out to drinks in the halting Italian he had been intensively studying since he received his assignment in Rome, and Savino had said yes.

When he’d first invited Savino to spend time with him outside of work, Alfred had meant the invitation in an entirely friendly manner. Over the years, Alfred had occasionally wondered about his sexuality, but he’d never been able to come to a firm conclusion on the subject. As far as he could tell, he was not inclined to women, but he was not inclined towards men either. He hadn’t lied to the Army or the State Department, but he hadn’t told them the full truth either. He hadn’t told anyone the full truth. It was better for everyone to think he was a normal, red-blooded American man, especially his mother and father in upstate New York and his fraternal twin Matthew, who had taken up a job in their mother’s native Canada. He didn’t want to disappoint his family or his country, so Alfred had begun his friendship with Savino with entirely innocent intentions.

But those intentions gradually fell away over the next several months. He spent more time around Savino, and he stopped thinking of him as Savino, the guy he knew from the tailoring shop, and started thinking of him as Vinny, the closest friend he’d ever had. Alfred began to desire things with Vinny that would have been illegal back home, that would be his professional ruination here, that would surely give his poor mother a heart attack if she found out and cause his father to disown him. He couldn’t even begin to contemplate how Savi, by all appearances a staunch Catholic, would react if he learned of the perverted feelings Alfred harbored for him. The prospect was too frightening and too depressing. Alfred’s feelings, sordid as they were, went beyond simple lust. He truly loved Vinny, in all the ways he should have loved a woman, and he couldn’t bear the thought of not having his best friend in his life at all. For the sake of their friendship, Alfred had promised himself he would never say anything, but one evening, as Savino was saying good night to him outside his apartment building, he couldn’t conceal his feelings anymore.

The kiss had been entirely accidental. Vinny had been going for his cheek, an entirely normal goodbye between close friends in Italy. Alfred had correctly interpreted Vinny’s intention, but it had been late in the evening and Alfred was too exhausted to remember that Italians kissed the right cheek first, not the left. He turned his head in the wrong direction, and their lips collided, but only for an instant.

Savino jumped back, and he immediately began offering an apology. “Shit, I didn’t mean to do that! I’m so fucking sorry!”

Alfred smiled weakly, trying to ignore the fact that his lips were still tingling from the brief, unintentional contact with Savino’s. “It’s okay, Vinny.”

“It’s really not! Cazzo, that must have freaked you out, me kissing you out of nowhere.” Savino’s face glowed red at the memory, and he cast his gaze down to the ground. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d freaked out and punched me.”

“Punch you? Why the hell would I do that?” The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Savi. He _loved_ him.

But Savino didn’t known that. He sighed and hunched in on himself, like he trying to make himself small enough to disappear in front of Alfred’s eyes. “Most guys—if another guy kissed them, they’d be so disgusted and offended that they’d punch him right automatically, without thinking about it. Even if it _was_ an accident.”

Vinny glanced up, and his mouth was twisted into a frown. His eyes were hard for Alfred to read, but he seemed to be waiting for Alfred to respond.

Alfred’s heart was lodged in his throat, and he barely managed to choke out an answer. “I guess… I guess I’m not like that.”

Savino’s eyebrows rose slightly. “What if a guy kissed you on purpose?”

Alfred meant to lie, to say that he was like most other men, that of course he would be disgusted and offended by another man intentionally making a pass at him. But instead, he admitted the truth in a quiet, terrified voice. “That would depend on who it was.”

Vinny stepped closer to him, and Alfred was half-convinced he was hallucinating, because he could’ve sworn that Savino was _smirking_ at him. “If it was me?”

“If it was you, I wouldn’t push you away. Hell, I don’t think I’d be able to.”

Savi leaned up and kissed him square on the mouth. Alfred, once he was able to get past his disbelief, kissed him back with as much clumsy, eager passion as his complete lack of experience allowed. He put his right arm around Vinny’s waist to pull him in closer, regretting that he didn’t have a left arm to put around Savino too.

Savino pulled his mouth away, but only to give Alfred a heated look as he pushed him up against the brick wall of his apartment building. Vinny latched onto his neck with his lips, tongue, and a hint of teeth, and Alfred tossed his head back with a wanton moan and closed his eyes.

“Savi. Savi please.” Alfred was begging for something, but he was so far gone that he didn’t know precisely what. All he knew was that he never wanted Vinny to stop.

Vinny chuckled against his throat. “Want to go inside, Fredo?”

Alfred opened his eyes and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Savino smiled as Alfred opened the door to his apartment building. They couldn’t kiss in the lobby, because another patron might appear unexpectedly, even at this late hour. But he stayed close to his side until they could be alone together.

* * *

When he started a relationship with Savino, Alfred was deliriously happy. He never forgot that society would consider him a degenerate for being in love with another man, but Vinny reciprocating his feelings made it a lot easier for Alfred to stop agreeing with what society believed. When they were together in a more intimate way, Alfred was too blissful to feel ashamed or to hate himself for wanting certain things. Instead of the condemnation he would receive from the rest of the world, Alfred was adored, and he adored Savino in return.

Alfred and Savino’s happiness and their safety was protected by a cocoon of privacy. Alfred had heard about the ongoing campaign to oust suspected Communists and homosexuals from U.S. government positions. The State department, which Alfred worked for, was a major target, so Alfred had to be especially careful. He hadn’t seen anyone disappearing from the Roman embassy yet, but that didn’t mean he was safe. To protect Alfred’s employment, which his Italian visa depended upon, and avoid the homophobia they would surely face from random strangers, Alfred and Savino couldn’t be too affectionate or too obvious in public. And they couldn’t tell anyone who might spill their secrets later.

Alfred was a personable guy, and he was well-liked at his job. But he couldn’t trust his colleagues, even the ones he considered friends, to keep his secret, especially if they became targeted and were asked to inform on other State Department employees. There was an entire part of his life he kept separate from them. While his colleagues could regularly talk about their wives, girlfriends, or conquests of the week, Alfred could only mention Savino in passing, and he had to keep pretending Vinny was just a friend. There was a certain depressing irony to the fact that one of his superiors, who was married, could carry on an open affair with his secretary, but that Alfred, who was in a committed, loving relationship that didn’t impact his work, had to hide his personal life because it would be considered more shameful than an extramarital affair.

Savino’s younger brother and grandfather already knew that he liked both men and women, and they didn’t judge him since they shared the same inclinations. So he was able to tell them about his relationship with Alfred early on, and because he worked with them, he didn’t have to conceal his personal life at work the way Alfred did. Vinny’s family, who had been kind and welcoming to Alfred before, started to treat him as family too. Alfred appreciated their support, but he also felt persistent guilt. His family was on another continent, but Alfred knew if he told his parents the truth, he would lose them. Savino was able to welcome into his family, but Alfred didn’t know if he would ever be able to do the same.

His mother and father were probably a lost cause, but his twin brother was an open question. At least until March 1953, nearly a year after he and Savino had gotten together. Matthew had come over to briefly visit Alfred while he was on vacation, and he was unusually chatty when they met up at a local restaurant to have dinner. Since they had last spoken, Mattie had apparently met a girl at work, and they had started dating a few weeks ago.

“That’s great, Mattie,” Alfred said. “I’m glad you found someone.”

“Have you dated anyone?” Matthew asked casually. “Since you’ve been in Italy?”

Alfred was so startled by Mattie’s question that he nearly choked to death on a bite of bruschetta. Matthew leaned over to pat his back, but Alfred held up a hand to tell Matthew he was fine before his brother could attempt to help him. He managed to avoid dying, and he took a sip of his wine after he’d managed to dislodge the bread.

“You know me,” Alfred said, once he could talk. “I prefer being footloose and fancy-free.” He plastered on a grin to sell his lie, but Mattie didn’t seem to believe him. He was giving him a worried yet skeptical look that Alfred had seen many times throughout his life.

“You know, if you had met someone, you could tell me,” Matthew quietly told him. “No matter who it is.”

Alfred nervously fidgeted with his napkin and glanced around for the ever-present spies he worried about every time he was around Savino outside of his apartment or Vinny’s house. “Even if it’s someone I couldn’t ever introduce to Mom and Dad?”

Matthew’s voice took on a kind, sympathetic tone. “Even then, Al.”

Alfred swallowed heavily and mentally prepared himself for the worst. “You remember that friend I told you about, Savino?”

“Of course. You talk about him every time I see you.” Mattie chuckled. “You’re really fond of him, aren’t you?”

Alfred struggled to hold in his tears as he looked down at the tablecloth. He was too afraid to see Matthew’s reaction when he told him the truth. “I… I love him, Mattie. I love him like I’ve never loved anybody.”

Matthew reached over and covered the back of the hand Alfred still had. “Al, I’m glad you found someone.”

The echo of the words he told Mattie earlier calmed him, and when Alfred did gather the courage to look up at his brother, he didn’t look revolted or even surprised. He might not understand everything Alfred was going through, but he had this compassionate look on his face that told Alfred that he wanted to understand. That he wasn’t going to reject his twin for falling in love with someone he wasn’t supposed to.

Alfred began to open up to Mattie about his relationship, and by the end of their meeting, he was gushing about Savino without restraint, the way part of him had always wanted to but hadn’t thought he’d be allowed to. Matthew rolled his eyes at Alfred’s sappiness, but he seemed more amused than anything else.

The next day, Alfred was able to introduce Vinny to someone as his boyfriend, which was a momentous and unprecedented occasion for him. He was practically bouncing on his heels as he picked Vinny up from work and led him over to his apartment, where they’d be meeting Matthew. Vinny snorted at him.

“You’re really excited about this, aren’t you, tesoro?”

“Of course I am! You’re meeting my family. It’s kind of a big deal.”

Savino smiled and bumped elbows with him, which was as close as they could get to holding hands out on the street. “I know. It’s important to me too.”

“I wish I could’ve done this before, but I didn’t know how Mattie was gonna react. At least he’s cool with it. My mom and dad probably won’t be, so I don’t know if you’ll ever get to meet them.” Alfred frowned, thinking of his parents. He’d probably have to tell them the truth someday, but he didn’t know how to do that. For now, his parents were still proud of the man they believed he was. Alfred was reluctant to shatter their illusions.

Savi glanced around, then leaned into Alfred’s side as they made their way into his apartment building. “Let’s just focus on the positives. You have your brother on your side, and you didn’t know you’d have him before.”

Alfred had cheered up by the time they made their way upstairs to his apartment, where Mattie was waiting for them. The introductions went exceedingly well. After Alfred introduced them to each other, Matthew pulled Savino into a hug that he awkwardly reciprocated. “Thank you for making Al happy,” Matthew told him.

“I try my best,” Savino said. “That idiota makes me really happy too.”

Matthew laughed as he pulled out of the hug. “That’s good to hear.” He sent Alfred a teasing look. “Unfortunately, I don’t have the family album of baby pictures with me that I’d normally use in this situation, so I guess I’ll just have to tell you embarrassing childhood stories about Al.”

Alfred groaned. “Mattie—”

Luckily, Matthew only shared a few embarrassing childhood anecdotes that evening. Unfortunately, they were the worst ones, but Alfred didn’t really mind being embarrassed by his brother. It was strangely heartwarming for Matthew to tease Alfred the way Al had always teased Mattie every time he brought a new girlfriend home to meet the family. The fact that Savino was a guy really didn’t seem to matter to Mattie, and Alfred was glad his brother not only accepted him, but treated the fact Alfred was queer like it was a normal, everyday thing.

The hours flew by, but eventually Matthew got tired and decided it would be best to head back to his hotel for the evening. Alfred made plans to meet up with his brother the next day, and Matthew gave him a goodbye hug and ruffled his hair, which was normal for them. He hugged Savi goodbye too, which was something new that warmed Alfred’s heart to see. It gave him hope for the future. He might not always have his parents, but still had his brother, and it looked like he’d have Mattie through thick and thin.

Once he was gone, Alfred and Savino returned to the couch. Vinny leaned into Alfred’s side, and Alfred put his right arm around his boyfriend’s shoulders. Savi knew Alfred liked to cuddle him and usually remembered to sit on his right side so he would be able to. “I like your brother,” Vinny said. “He’s nice.”

“Mattie’s always been a good person, but he’s taken this really well, even better than I hoped he would. I think maybe part of him knew, somehow. Mysterious twin thing, I guess.”

Vinny yawned. “Or it could be because you never dated anyone before me.”

Alfred chuckled sheepishly. “That too.”

Savino reached up to trace the side of Alfred’s face with his hand. “You’re a good person, Fredo, and you deserve good things. I’m glad you were able to tell your brother about us.”

“I’m glad I was able to tell him too. But as far as I’m concerned, I’ve already got more good things than I could possibly deserve. I have you, don’t I?”

Savino rolled his eyes, but there was a warm blush on his cheeks, the one that appeared every time Alfred said something sappy to him, even nearly a year after they’d gotten together. “Cheesy idiota,” he muttered.

Alfred grinned. “Your cheesy idiota, honey.”

Savino leaned up to kiss him, and Alfred stopped grinning long enough to kiss him back. The kiss was sweet, warm, soft, and comfortable. It wasn’t as urgently passionate as the kisses that would inevitably lead to a frenzied removal of clothes and sex, but it still made Alfred’s heart beat a little faster than it should and left him mildly dizzy afterwards.

Savino pulled away and blinked sleepily at him. “I’m tired. Wanna go to bed with me, amore?”

Alfred giggled like a prepubescent child with a crush. “Of course I do.”

Vinny wiggled out of his hold and started to head back towards Alfred’s bedroom. Alfred eagerly trailed after him, only a couple of steps behind.

They got ready for bed, and after a few minutes of lazy kissing, Savino laid his head down on Alfred’s chest, right over his heart, and closed his eyes. “This is exactly where I want to be, forever. Ti amo.”

Alfred smiled as he ran his fingers through Savi’s hair and watched the love of his life drift off to sleep. “Love you too, sweetheart.”

* * *

For a while, Alfred had it all. He had Savino, he had his job, and he still had everyone in his family. But he only maintained it all by the thinnest of threads, and those threads began to unravel in early September.

Alfred first got a clue of the imminent disaster facing him when he dropped by to visit Vinny one day at work. He usually had lunch with other foreign service officers at the embassy, especially those who also worked in consular services, but every now and then he’d pick Savino up so they could have lunch somewhere together. He didn’t think it was suspicious to occasionally have lunch with a friend. He’d mentioned Savino in passing a few times at work, so it would probably seem strange if he avoided spending time with him in public.

But when he came to the shop, he saw that the “Closed” sign had been put in the window, which didn’t make sense. The Vargas family kept their shop open every day except Sunday, and Alfred had dropped by on September 2, which was a Wednesday.

Alfred squinted through the window, where he could see Feliciano perched on a stool, sobbing inconsolably while his brother and his grandfather tried in vain to comfort him. Alfred hesitantly knocked on the glass, and Savino and Augusto turned to face him. Feli was too overwhelmed to notice someone had appeared at their front door.

Savino quickly rushed to the front door, unlocked it, and pulled Alfred inside. He made sure to lock the door before explaining anything.

“What’s going on? Why is Feli crying?” Feliciano only cried harder in response to Alfred’s confused questioning.

Augusto looked uncharacteristically angry. “Some American officials claiming to be from the State Department came to the shop while I wasn’t here and terrorized my grandson! I don’t know where they got the nerve to think they could come in here to my place of business! Don’t they need a warrant to interrogate people?!”

Alfred grimaced. “Generally, yeah.” But if this was about him, as he suspected it was, they may have _had_ a warrant.

Feliciano was sobbing. “I didn’t know! They just looked like normal customers at first!”

Savino sighed as he kneeled down in front of Feli’s stool. Alfred kneeled down next to him. “They were probably looking for me, but I wasn’t here. I was out with Nonno picking up a shipment order. We’d left Feli to run the store, so he was the only one around at the time. I guess they just decided to interrogate whoever they could.”

“They… they asked me so many questions about Fredo, but I didn’t say anything I wasn’t supposed to! I swear! I only said he’d been our customer and that he was Vino’s friend! Whenever they tried to get me to say anything else, I lied or said I didn’t know!”

Alfred smiled sadly at his boyfriend’s little brother. “I know you did, Feli.” He wasn’t sure how much the State Department security officers would have believed Feliciano’s story, given how terrified he obviously was, but Feli had done his best to protect him. If they hadn’t already, he was sure the security officers were planning to question everyone he’d ever spoken to at the embassy and the other residents in his apartment building. They might even go far enough to question people from his hometown, guys he’d served with in the military, and his college classmates. He didn’t think anything truly incriminating existed out there, but if they dug deep and wide enough, they might be able to find something suspicious they could use as spurious evidence against him. And the other people they questioned wouldn’t have any reason to protect him the way Feliciano did.

“They yelled at me, and I started crying. I think they thought I was scared of them, and I was, but not for me! I was scared for you, Fredo. Those men were so mean to me, and I wasn’t even the person they were asking questions about. You don’t deserve to be treated like that! No one does.”

Alfred leaned over to hug his boyfriend’s little brother. “It’s okay. I’m gonna be fine.”

Feliciano clung to him. “What if it’s not? What if they go after you next?”

“We’ll just have to hope they don’t do that,” Vinny said quietly. “We’ll just have to hope that they can’t find anything, and this whole thing blows over, right, Fredo?”

Alfred nodded tightly. “Right.” But he knew that if they were looking into him, they had already found something. And that meant that his days at the embassy were probably coming to a swift and sudden end.

* * *

Alfred and Vinny came up with a plan for how to handle the investigation. Alfred was to continue his normal routine as much as possible, but for at least the next couple of weeks, they couldn’t be seen together. People had already come to Savino’s place of work to question him, and it was possible that others were spying on Alfred. He didn’t need to give them any more ammunition against him.

Alfred kissed Savino goodbye and tipped his head down to lean their foreheads together instead of immediately leaving the shop. “I’m gonna miss the hell out of you, baby.”

“I’m gonna miss you too. But we need to keep you safe until this dies down.”

“I know. But if this doesn’t die down, it’s still not the end for us. I won’t let it be.”

Vinny nodded and smiled weakly at him. “I know. I love you too, idiota.”

Alfred wished he could have given Savino the world, or at least a promise that everything would turn out okay. But all he could do was whisper I love you, kiss him on the lips softly, and walk out the door.

The next two weeks of Alfred’s life were the loneliest he’d ever lived through. It was gut-wrenching to know he couldn’t even talk to his boyfriend, but that wasn’t the only problem. He wasn’t sure if it was paranoia or reality, but he could swear that people at work were either staring at him coldly or with looks of pity on their faces. Even the people who had been friendly to him in the past were starting to distance themselves from him. People who used to greet Alfred in the hallway would now brush past him without speaking a word.

Everywhere he went, it was much the same. His neighbors at the apartment complex would sneer at him when they saw him. The grocery store cashier seemed to feel sorry for him when Alfred stopped in to buy some milk. People at the laundromat gave him a wide berth like he had some contagious disease. Alfred wanted to scream, but he knew that wouldn’t help anything. Nothing he did would help.

Finally, on the morning of September 16, exactly two weeks after Feliciano had been questioned in the tailoring shop, a couple of State Department security officers were waiting for Alfred at his desk. When he arrived, they escorted him down a long, isolated hallway to an empty room and shut the door behind them.

“If this is about rooting out suspected Commies, you’ve got the wrong guy,” Alfred told them. “My family and I have been straight-ticket Democrats our whole lives.”

The heavier one, who looked like he could easily bench press him, glared at Alfred unsympathetically. “Sit down, Mr. Jones.”

Alfred cooperated, and the skinny one, who looked young enough to still be in high school, asked Alfred to take an oath. Alfred did, and the investigators started off with some routine questions they already knew the answers to. Things like his name, his address, his date of birth, his military service, and where he went to college. Then the beefy guy loomed over him. “Mr. Jones, the State Department has information that you are a homosexual. What comment do you wish to make regarding this matter?”

“I… that’s… no. I’m not.” He knew he had to lie. Refusing to say anything would be nearly as bad as an admission of guilt.

The skinny one crossed his arms over his chest. “You know it’s a crime to commit perjury, don’t you, Mr. Jones?”

Alfred trembled and bit his lip to avoid saying anything. Then the officers began to harangue him with evidence of his “predilections.” They started by mentioning his “nervous, feminine body language,” and Alfred exploded at them.

“Of course I’m nervous! You’ve got me under fucking interrogation!”

The accusation that he dressed “effeminately” and with an “abnormal penchant” for tailored suits was something Alfred easily refuted. He wasn’t dressing effeminately, he was dressing like a professional man in Italy because that was where he was working. Understanding the local culture and blending in with the populace was part of his goddamned job.

“Is it part of your job to take men back to your apartment and spend the night with them, Mr. Jones?”

As Alfred’s heart was hammering out of his chest, wondering which of his neighbors had seen him taking Vinny home with him, the other investigator threw him off balance by changing the subject to his lack of girlfriends in high school and college. “I was busy,” Alfred claimed. “I was focused on my studies.”

“Were you too busy to carry on a homosexual affair? Perhaps during the war?”

“I didn’t have ‘homosexual affairs’ back then. Not that I wanted to, of course!”

The beefy guy, who seemed to be playing bad cop today, scoffed at him dismissively. “Of course not.”

The investigators began to zero in on his most vulnerable point, his relationship with Savino Vargas. They claimed his closeness to Vinny was suspicious since he was a “known homosexual.” Alfred had no idea how they could have possibly “known” that, since Alfred himself hadn’t known Vinny was anything other than straight until the night they got together. Alfred responded with the same statement Feliciano had given a week ago. He had bought some suits from the Vargas family’s shop shortly after he arrived in Rome, and after that, he became Savino’s friend. “There’s nothing wrong with having a friend, right?”

That was when they told him what his colleagues had been saying behind his back. According to them, the way Alfred spoke about his “friend” was suspiciously affectionate. He hardly ever used Savino’s full name, instead referring to him as “Savi” and “Vinny.”

“What nicknames do you call him in private, Alfred?” the twiggy investigator asked with a sneer. “Honey? Sweetheart? Darling?”

The beefier investigator laughed at his expense, and Alfred sank down in his chair. He’d never felt so humiliated in his life. Their cruel, mocking laughter brought up all the shame Alfred thought he had gotten rid of more than a year ago. Shame for the crime of being in love with another man.

That was when they hit him with their most damning evidence yet. Apparently, someone had spotted them kissing outside Alfred’s apartment building.

“Do you… do you mean the cheek kissing thing? Because I know that would be a little weird in America, but it’s completely normal here. We’re close friends, and Vinny _is_ Italian.”

“It’s not custom to kiss men on the mouth in Italy, though, is it, Mr. Jones?”

Alfred frantically cast his memory back, trying to recall any incident where he might have kissed Savino outside his apartment building. And then he remembered. Their very first kiss, when his heart had filled with an elation Alfred hadn’t known existed before. Now the best, most important moment of his life had been twisted into something evil and wrong.

The beefy investigator closed in on him, like he was going in for the kill, and not just metaphorically. “We know it wasn’t just kissing, Alfred. Your neighbors have seen you bringing Mr. Vargas into your apartment at odd hours of the evening and have noticed him leaving early the following morning. The elderly woman who lives next door to you has heard you engaging in disgusting, perverted acts with your so-called friend multiple times.”

Alfred couldn’t hold in the tears anymore. He knew Mrs. Conti as the nice lady with the two Italian greyhounds who lived next door. Some of his other neighbors had been rude to him in the past two weeks, but Mrs. Conti hadn’t been one of them. But apparently, she had overheard Alfred and Vinny in their most private moments through the thin walls of her apartment, despite their attempts to be quiet. And when U.S. government officials came by to question her about her neighbor, Mrs. Conti had no qualms informing them of what she knew.

“You’re crying because you’re a pansy and you’ve been caught,” the younger investigator hissed. “You’ve lied your whole life, so you thought you could get away with lying now, but you can’t. It’s time to tell us the truth, Alfred.”

“I wasn’t lying! Before I met Vinny, I didn’t know I could like someone that way! But then I fell in love with him, and I, I…” Alfred was sobbing too hard to continue.

“But you never liked women though, did you? Did you?”

Alfred shook his head in defeat. “I didn’t. I guess that makes me a queer.” He wasn’t sure if there was a word for what he was, the sort of person that had only been attracted to one person in his entire life, but the specifics didn’t matter. His country didn’t care about the specifics. The fact that he had fallen in love with a man instead of a woman was enough to seal his fate.

The investigators demanded that Alfred name any other homosexuals he knew of from his time in the military or as a foreign service officer. Alfred couldn’t think of anyone, and he was able to tell them that honestly. Alfred didn’t want anyone to undergo what he had just been through, but he was so broken by that point that he could have snitched on someone else who didn’t deserve this kind of treatment. The interrogation had at most lasted hours, but it had been so personal and so humiliating that Alfred felt like he had been tortured for days on end.

The investigators nodded to each other, and the bigger one produced a clipboard with a pen that he placed on the table in front of Alfred. “Sign this, and we’ll let you go.”

Alfred needed a minute to wipe his eyes and his glasses so he could actually see well enough to sign any document. The investigators waited for him, but he doubted they were waiting patiently.

Alfred lifted up the pen to sign the document without reading it, but a few words instantly jumped out at him. Words like, “unfit to serve,” “security risk,” and “subversive.” Alfred was angry, and he dropped the clipboard back on the table.

“I’ll quit, but I’m not signing this bullshit thing you wrote for me.”

The heavyset investigator rolled his eyes. “Mr. Jones, this is standard procedure.”

“Standard procedure, my foot! None of the questions you asked me today had anything to do with national security. I wasn’t caught canoodling with a Russian spy, and I’m not gonna pretend like I was! You’re only firing me because I’m queer and that grosses you out.”

Before they could say anything in reply, Alfred stood up from the chair and stormed out the door past the security officers. They didn’t attempt to stop him.

“I got my arm blown off for America! You fuckers wouldn’t know patriotism if it came up and bit you on the ass!”

Alfred could feel everyone in the office staring at him as he headed over to his desk to pack up his few personal belongings. He didn’t have a picture of Vinny on his desk, but he did have a couple of pictures of Mattie and his parents. He tried not to think about how his parents would probably be getting a call soon to inform them of what had happened, of why the son they had been so proud of before would no longer be allowed to serve his country. He tried not to think about the fact that after his secret had been exposed, he would be as parentless as any orphan.

Once he had packed up his things, Alfred took the stairs to leave the embassy. He didn’t want to deal with anyone on the elevator.

* * *

After he was effectively fired, Alfred wandered the streets of Rome aimlessly for the next few hours. He only realized the absurdity of what he was doing when he somehow ended up behind a group of Asian tourists at the Colosseum. The happy children talking in a language he didn’t understand as their parents took photos was sharply discordant with the horrible situation Alfred faced. The cloudless blue sky and pleasant, late summer weather made Alfred feel like God was mocking him. He couldn’t figure out how to begin repairing his life in such a cheerful atmosphere, so Alfred broke away from the tour group and sat down on a nearby bench. He put his head in his hands and tried to think.

He knew he couldn’t go back home. He had saved enough money that he could afford a plane ticket back to New York, but going back home would mean facing his parents. His parents would want nothing more to do with him once they knew what happened. He stared up and saw how high the sun was in the sky. A long time had passed since he left the office. It was in the afternoon now, and his parents had already probably been called with the news.

Theoretically, he could fly to Toronto. Part of him did want to see Mattie, to cry in his brother’s arms and rant about the unfairness of the world. But he didn’t want to leave Rome just yet. He didn’t want to leave Savino. Alfred didn’t have many things left in his life that he cared about, and he couldn’t bear to lose the person he cared about most.

Alfred had no idea what he might do in Rome, now that he was no longer a foreign service officer. He could no longer do the work he had studied and trained for, but at least he had enough of a grasp of Italian to get by in most situations. Alfred had no illusions and no arrogance about his position. He knew most people wouldn’t hire a disgraced American expat with one arm, but he hoped someone, anyone would be charitable enough to overlook the reasons that he had been let go. All he wanted was to stay close to the man he loved, and he didn’t care what kind of backbreaking or menial labor he’d have to do to make that happen.

It had been two weeks since he last saw Vinny’s handsome face, and Alfred missed him terribly. Two weeks since he’d last kissed Vinny, and now, in a strange sense, Alfred was freer than he’d ever been, without the shackles of his old life to hold him down. He could kiss Vinny without the consequences he would’ve faced before, since everyone knew now. Alfred needed to find Savino, explain what had happened, and tell him what he planned to make of his life, as tentative as those plans were.

Alfred stood up and shuffled along the sidewalks, heading back towards the neighborhood where the Vargas family had their tailoring business, where he had first met Savino and the course of his life had irrevocably changed. Alfred’s feet were sore from all the walking he’d done earlier, but he didn’t take the bus. He knew he’d need to save every cent he could.

The bell over the door tinkled as Alfred entered the shop, and Augusto looked up from the main desk he was manning and locked eyes with Alfred. His eyes widened in surprise. “Alfredo, what are you doing here? Is it… is it over?”

Alfred shook his head. “It didn’t turn out the way I wanted. Can you tell Savi I came here to see him?”

“Of course.” He rushed over to Feliciano, who was assisting a customer, and got him to cover the front desk. Feli smiled at him sympathetically as Augusto walked over to Alfred and began whispering in his ear as he led him to the back part of the store. “You can talk in my office. That way you’ll have more privacy.”

Alfred nodded solemnly. “I appreciate that.”

Augusto opened the door to the office for him and squeezed his shoulder. “You’re a good boy, Fredo. I’m sorry your government couldn’t see that.”

Alfred took a deep, shuddery breath. He’d already cried too much today. “Thanks for saying that. I really needed to hear it today.”

Augusto gave him one last sad look before he departed to go find his grandson. Alfred studied the tiles on the ceiling in an effort to calm down before Vinny’s arrival.

Vinny entered the room a couple minutes later with teary eyes and a worried look on his face. As soon as he shut the door behind him, Alfred’s composure crumbled.

“I got fired today! I got fired for being in love with you!”

“God, Fredo, I’m so fucking sorry.” Savino walked up to him and kissed him softly on the mouth, which managed to relax Alfred, at least a little. He wiped away the tears that had streaked down Alfred’s face with his thumbs and gazed up into his eyes. “What happened, tesoro?”

Bit by bit, Alfred began to detail what had happened during the interrogation and how it had made him feel. Savino predictably became enraged on his behalf. “I want to kill those fucking shitheads for doing that to you,” he snarled.

“They were brutal. I don’t know how they managed to dig up so much info about me, but they did.” Alfred continued, and he told Savino about how someone had seen them kissing that very first night. He quietly admitted that the investigators had informed him that Alfred’s next-door neighbor had overheard them having sex.

“Cristo. That’s… I had no idea we were being watched, and I never thought your neighbors might overhear us. I should’ve been more careful.” Savino frowned apologetically, and Alfred kissed his temple and closed his eyes as he inhaled the citrusy fragrance in his shampoo.

“It was my fault too, honey. When I’m with you, I can’t think of anything _but_ you. I’m definitely not thinking about Mrs. Conti. No offense to her, but I find you a lot more appealing.”

Savino laughed. “I suppose you would.”

Alfred explained how, since he was backed into a corner, he had no choice but to confess the truth. But when the investigators tried to make him sign a resignation statement calling himself unfit to serve and a national security risk, he’d refused. He told Vinny what he’d yelled at the security officers before he packed up his things and left the embassy.

“Good. That’s exactly what those bastards deserved. I hate what happened to you, but I’m glad you were able to stand up for yourself at the end. I’m proud of you, caro.”

“You’re proud of me? Really?”

Vinny scowled at him in disapproval. “I’ll always be proud of you, no matter what happens, idiota. Someday, you’ll get that through your thick skull, and I won’t have to remind you every five seconds.”

Alfred grinned genuinely for the first time in two weeks. God, Vinny was just… perfect. He’d been destined to fall in love with him the very first moment he’d stepped off that airplane onto Italian soil. He might have no job, only one member of his birth family left, and an extremely uncertain future, but he had Savino, and that made him the luckiest man on Earth.

Savino’s shifted to bury his red face in Alfred’s neck. “You’re so frickin’ sappy about me sometimes. I don’t know how you can grin at me after everything you’ve been through today.”

“Because you’re here. I haven’t lost you yet, and you’re the most important thing to me. I can live without the other stuff, but I can’t live without you.”

Savino sighed, and he sounded half exasperated and half content. “So I guess you won’t be flying back to the U.S. anytime soon?”

Alfred shook his head. “If I go anywhere, I’m taking you with me. But for now, I’m gonna stay here. I’m not sure who the hell would be willing to hire me after what happened, but I’ll at least give it a shot.”

Vinny wound his arms around him. “If you can’t find anything decent, we’ll give you something to do here. You could be my apprentice or something.”

Alfred considered it. “I don’t want to be a charity case you have to look out for, but that could work if I can’t find anything else.” He smirked. “And you know, I wouldn’t mind working _underneath_ you.”

Savi rolled his eyes and groaned. “God, you’re the worst.” But he was tugging at Alfred’s shirt collar to pull his face closer, so obviously he didn’t think Alfred was so bad after all. Alfred giggled against Vinny’s mouth, and for a moment, he was too giddy to think about anything or anyone else. So much of his life was a shambles, but the man he loved more than anything else was here, trying to kiss him. Alfred decided that he and Vinny could figure out the rest later, together.


End file.
